Paul Griffin - Burning Blue

The kids mobbed the concession stand. They were shrieking more than laughing. All the bouncing around on the horse had given me a headache. Nicole adjusted her sunglasses so they were closer to her eyes. She made sure her hair covered the left side of her face. “My second surgery is coming up,” she said. “I can’t believe I have to keep doing this. The anesthesia. Going dark like that, bam, you’re dead, you know?”

“I do.”

“The harvesting is the worst of it. The idea of it.” She pushed her cheese fries away. “My mother begged me not to ride. She said I would open up the wound. I said, ‘I’m not doing any headstands on the horse today, Mom,’ and she said, ‘No, I mean your hip. You’ll split the stitches.’ I had to sneak out of the house.”

The kids threw ketchup-soaked fries at each other.

“Did you?” I said. “Split the stitches?”

“They were ready to come out anyway. The wounds stayed closed. I checked them in the bathroom.” She winced. “Hurt more than my face right about now, though.”

The kids’ screaming was really getting to me. Underneath it was this crackling buzz. About twenty feet away, a dude was spot-welding a hinge onto the pasture gate. The stink of acetylene and burning metal cut into my nostrils and seeped like a nosebleed into the back of my throat. “What does he do, your dad?” I said.

“Finance. I better call my mom.”

I gagged on the metal taste. The sun flickered. Nicole said from a great distance, even though her face was inches from mine, “Jay, are you all right?” as I fell backward.

I came to on a cot in the stables office. The woman who ran the concession was taking my blood pressure. Nicole mopped my brow. I put my hand down to my crotch.

I was dry.

“How long was I out?” I said.

“Maybe two minutes,” Nicole said.

“Was I-”

“You were shivering, sort of,” Nicole said.

“I don’t think you were all the way out,” the woman said. “You stood up when I told you to and you let us walk you back here. Has this ever hap-”

“Yes,” I said.

“Are you taking any medi-”

“Supposed to be.”

“When was the last time you-”

“Yesterday.” She had taken off my sneakers. I sat up and put them back on.

“Hold on a second there,” the woman said. “The ambulance is on its way.”

“I don’t need an ambulance.”

“Jay,” Nicole said.

“My father’s insurance doesn’t cover ambulance rides.”

“That’s no reason not to get medical attention,” Nicole said.

“It is for me.” I was done pretending, acting as if I belonged here at a riding stable, of all the ridiculous places, one that catered to a bunch of spoiled rich kids.

“Let me call your mother, then,” the woman who ran the concession said. “Just lie back there and breathe until she gets here.”

“My name is Jay Nazzaro. I’m at Huntington Stables. Today is Friday, October twenty-second. I’m alert and oriented with no signs of physical trauma or amnesia. I was eating fries, and I had a seizure. I know the drill, okay? By law you have to let me go.” I left.

Nicole followed. “Can I at least take you to the hospital? My father’ll pay, Jay.”

“No way. Can you pop the hatchback?” We were at her Subaru, or her maid’s.

“You’re not seriously thinking of skateboarding?”

“Could you just open the door, please?” I clicked the autolock dangling from her bandaged finger. The hatchback popped. I grabbed my backpack, dropped my board and kicked off on legs that would have been a lot wobblier if I weren’t so mad at myself, at Nicole, for bringing me down here, into her pain, looking for a shoulder to cry on. Like I didn’t have enough hassle in my life without pulling hers into it. She tried to follow me, but I rode into the shoulder of oncoming traffic and lost her in the side streets. My phone rang. I turned it off. I went to Barnes amp; Noble but was too mad to read. I wandered the mall, hitting the electronics spots, first Radio Shack, Best Buy, moving my way up to the Apple Store, coveting things I’d never be able to afford.

From Nicole’s journal:

Fri, 22 Oct-

I lost his friendship before I ever had it.

Mom’s pissed I went riding, says she’s thinking about not letting me leave the house until Nye clears me for “public interaction.” Exact opposite of what Dr. Schmidt said, that I should be getting out there, getting back to normal, getting my life back.

David left me six apology messages today, extremely annoying, probably as annoying as the six I left Jay tonight. That forced look in David’s eyes. I can’t bear it again. Staring too hard at me, pretending he doesn’t see the bandage when all he’s thinking about is what’s underneath it. I should show him. How would he look at me then? He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t be able to.

Emma’s still sick.

Xanax time, two bullets tonight, with Mom’s blessing.

I hate myself.

My father was out when I got home, no message as to his whereabouts. He had probably covered an opening and was grabbing a late dinner with the gallery owners at some fancy place on their dime.

I forced myself to take my meds. I had grabbed a can of soup on my way home and a loaf advertised as “Health Bread” that was suspiciously spongy. After I got that stuff into me, I took a hot shower. I was still mad. I’d spent an hour with Nicole the day before, walking her home. I’d spent two hours with her this afternoon. In those three hours, she was happy to tell me her problems, but she hadn’t asked me much about mine. Did it occur to her I might be as messed up as she was? Then again, I still had my face.

To torture myself, I logged into my YouTube channel, searched “epileptic seizure in public.” Sure enough, somebody had clipped me at the stables. There I was, flailing in the dust. Just like before, most of the kids watching me seize were at least concerned, but others were out there with their phones. One girl was snickering. I was on my side, riding an invisible bicycle. Then there was Nicole.

She pushed them back. One kid stuffed a bunched lunch bag into my mouth. Nicole pulled the paper out. The kid protested, “So he doesn’t bite his tongue.”

“No,” Nicole said. She knew exactly what to do, the only thing you’re supposed to do when somebody seizes: Just keep him clear of anything he might smash his hands, legs, head on and let him get through it. But Nicole Castro did more than that for me. She smacked the phones from the hands of the kids who were clipping me. “How dare you?” she kept saying. “How dare you? What’s wrong with you? How can you do that to him?” She knelt over me and shielded me from the kids’ phone cameras. When I had for the most part stopped shivering, she cradled my head and brushed the hair from my eyes and called my name.

I paused the video there and reached for my phone. I had to thank her, to apologize for being an idiot, jilting her at the stables. I hesitated. It was two in the morning. I had doubled down on my anticonvulsant meds. I had enough trouble not saying anything stupid when I wasn’t looped. I put the phone down.

I didn’t have to think about it for very long before I decided to commit to it, no matter what. I was going to catch the son of a bitch who burned Nicole Castro. I pulled up the two emails I’d ripped from Mrs. Marks’s hard drive, the ones Arachnomorph sent her from an unknowable origin, and I got to work.

The next morning, Saturday, just before sunrise, I heard my father pull his suitcase from his closet. He was headed to Philadelphia for a fine arts conference. I had the place to myself for the weekend, right through to the next. I waited until he was gone before I got out of bed. I burned myself some toast and scanned the so-called news sites for bits about Nicole. The “New Beau” garbage was still out there, but it had fallen lower in the most-read story rankings. Why weren’t the detectives all over this thing? A girl gets burned, and they’re not worried the perp is going to attack again?